


The Journey is Yourself

by SaraJaye



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Gen, Heroine's Journey, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Ordinary Schoolgirl Anthy, Past Abuse, Past Incest, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Series Revolutionary Girl Utena, Self-Discovery, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: Anthy adapts to the world beyond Ohtori.
Relationships: Himemiya Anthy & Original Female Character(s), Referenced Utena/Anthy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21
Collections: Ladies Bingo 2020





	The Journey is Yourself

Her first glimpse of the world outside Ohtori should be more overwhelming than this. Spending God knows how long sealed away in her coffin, conditioned by her brother to believe she would fall apart without him to guide her; she remembers the nights he'd tell her about the scary crowds, the big loud noises, the monsters that would gobble her up. All to keep her safely under his thumb, to make sure she'd be too afraid to ever leave him.

But right now, all she sees is possibility. Everything so dull and mundane about this world is new and exciting to her. Schools without uniforms, jeans and sweaters and public transportation as far as the eye can see. Not a hint of magic anywhere.

There's a life out there waiting for her, a life so ordinary her heart sings at the very thought. It's waiting for her, and she's going to find it.

She's surprised to find somewhere to live within a week of being in the city. A college student named Yukari offers the spare room in her studio apartment, and to help her enroll in public school.

"What's a kid like you doing out here on her own?" she asks. Anthy flinches, for the first time realizing that she is, indeed, a child. Fourteen, yes, but in this world fourteen is much younger than she's been led to believe her whole life.

"I'm an orphan. I don't have any family." It's not even a lie. Her parents, any relatives she may have had long ago, they've been gone for years, and she's quickly learned enough about this world's legal and moral positions to know that Akio would be in jail by now and deemed unfit to raise her. Yukari looks about to ask further, but thankfully doesn't.

"You're a brave girl," she says. "How long have you been living on your own?"

"A few years," Anthy lies. "It was a car crash, very sudden...their lawyer offered to take me in, while they were sorting out the will, but...I'd rather not. I left it all behind, too many painful memories." She sips the cocoa Yukari pours for them. "I just..."

"Just...?" Yukari blinks. Anthy sighs.

"There _is_ someone I'm looking for. I'm hoping once I find her, I can stay with her." Utena has mentioned an aunt, and Anthy wishes she'd thought to ask the woman's name. "She's a childhood friend who moved away when we were still small," she lies. "But I've never forgotten her."

"That's so sweet." Yukari smiles sadly. "I've lost touch with a old of old friends myself. Pretty much everyone I grew up with, except for one guy I still write letters to every month. I mean, we had a lot of good times together, but people grow up, move on, you know?"

She sounds so nonchalant as she says it, but Anthy's almost certain she detects regret in those words. She almost wants to tell her it's not too late to find those old friends, to write them letters too. _But is it right for someone who barely knows her place in this new world to give such advice to someone who's been here her whole life?_

So she sips her cocoa and listens to Yukari's stories. Growing up in a tiny town, playing in a backyard and making mud pies. The worst fight she ever had with a friend was about a stupid video game. She spent half her free time watching cartoons and the other half riding her bike around town. One time, a boy hit her in the face and immediately got sent to the principal's office. Her brother gave her noogies, called her silly names, ate the last of the cereal, but also taught her how to shoot a basket. She was only allowed to sleep in his room during thunderstorms, and only on the floor.

Anthy has never envied anyone more than she does Yukari Fujishiro.

The next few weeks are one never-ending adjustment period. Anthy gets used to a school where the faculty is firmly in charge and the student council is just one of many clubs. No rose motifs, no daily duels for a princess's hand, no bell tower.

The social ladder still exists, and some of the more popular students aren't the nicest people in the world. Anthy flinches when the school's queen bee approaches her, expecting a slap to the face for no reason, but the girl only wishes to borrow her eraser. She barely pays attention to Anthy otherwise.

A boy asks to sit with her at lunch, and when she turns him down she's surprised when he shrugs and goes to sit with his friends instead. The last of the bruises on her wrists from the boy who _wouldn't_ take no for an answer finally healed a week ago.

She finds she's mostly ignored by the crueler of the popular students. By now, they have their designated victims, and those victims have friends willing to fight for them. Anthy steers clear of that mess, it's such a relief to be invisible in the grand scheme of the junior high school pecking order.

(Still, she thinks, if Utena were here, there would be no such situations.)

Her grades aren't the best going in, but her teachers expect better from her. They assign her a tutor who focuses solely on the schoolwork.

All the while, she finds herself growing closer to Yukari.

"You remind me of my little sister," Yukari says as she watches Anthy setting out Chu-Chu's breakfast one morning. "She can't help feeding every animal that crosses her path. It's a wonder we only had five pets total growing up." Anthy smiles. One thing she's glad carried over from her old life was her affinity for animals, even though she can't take every stray home with her anymore. Yukari just barely cleared Chu-Chu with the landlord, who has a strict "no pets outside of a bowl or a cage" policy.

"I've always been fond of animals. They're good listeners." Anthy pours herself a bowl of the colored fruit orbs that remind her of tennis balls. Utena would get a kick out of these. "What kind of pets did you have growing up, Yukari?" She has to stop herself from calling her "miss."

"Two cats, a dog, a hamster, and a ferret." Yukari dumps a heaping spoonful of sugar into her coffee, followed by a splash of milk. "I personally loved the ferret, but Mom kept griping that he was a mistake. Those little monsters can fit through any crack they find, they steal your socks, they nap in your underwear drawer for hours while you tear apart the house worrying they escaped through the basement." She chuckles. "But then they look up at you with those cute eyes and do their little war dance and you can't stay mad."

Anthy smiles, sipping her orange juice.

"It sounds like he wanted to see the world. I'm sure a big house was a lot of fun at first, but there's so much to see outside."

"He did try to get out a few times," Yukari says. "We tried to take him for walks on one of those ferret leashes, but he hated it." She shrugs. "I guess I can't blame him. Who'd wanna be stuck on a leash with a whole world to explore?"

Anthy can't help but smirk as she slurps the last of the milk from her cereal bowl. Yukari's only rules are to call if she'll be late and don't leave the light on if she's not in a room. Electricity isn't cheap.

One night in mid-autumn, she has a nightmare. Police have brought her back to Ohtori, Akio gently explaining that she's unwell and shouldn't have escaped in the first place. _She's very sick, she isn't right in the head, she needs her medicine. I'm the only one who can properly care for her, officers, I apologize if she's caused any trouble._ When they leave, he hits her, throws her onto the bed, rants about how she's never to leave his sight again.

It's when he starts hitting her in the legs with a _mitten_ that she realizes she's dreaming, and forces herself awake. She's sweaty, her stomach churns painfully, and she has to turn on her light and look around three times before she's aware of her surroundings.

"Anthy?" Yukari's padding into her room, and Anthy expects to be scolded for waking her this late. "Anthy, are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," Anthy gasps, forcing back the bile threatening to push its way to the tip of her throat. "Just a bad dream is all." Yukari frowns and leaves, only to return with a glass of water for her.

"Drink this." Anthy sips slowly, the nausea soon abating. She takes several deep breaths on Yukari's command, and the feeling of collapsing is gone as well.

"Thank you."

"What happened?" And Anthy doesn't want to tell her, she's been so _lucky_ to just ease into this new life with only minimal reminders of the past. _Have you, though?_ a voice asks her. _Or have you just been deliberately avoiding it? Did you think it was so easy?_

She's been a victim for God only knows how long. Leaving Ohtori was the first choice she'd ever made for herself without being backed into a corner or to push back against someone who'd hurt her. The moment she took off her glasses and let her hair down she'd silently declared she'd no longer be that victim, that she wouldn't be one of those broken girls who let her traumatic past control her and every choice she made. She's thrown herself into the fantastically mundane, clung to her amazement at this new world.

But she hasn't learned to let herself trust yet, she realizes. She does all she can to act like a normal girl, but she hasn't made any real friends at her new school. In truth, she only sees Yukari and this city as a stopover before she goes on her way to find Utena again.

_Utena would not want this for you,_ she thinks. _She would want you to feel at home in a place like this. She would never want you to put your entire life on hold and simply go through the motions until you find her._

Devoting her entire life to only one person had cost her everything once. Here, multiple people want to know her, genuinely seem to like her. Two of her classmates keep asking her to study with them, her teachers congratulate her when she gets good grades.

And Yukari, kind and thoughtful and cheerful, just like a big sister to her. It's a weeknight and instead of griping that Anthy disturbed her rest, she's here giving her water and looking at her with such concerned eyes.

Her journey to find Utena cannot begin until she finds herself. But that's too big a job for her to do alone, and Yukari is reaching for her.

_Like a sister._

"My brother used to hit me," she begins after a long silence. "He was already twenty-two when our parents died, so he was awarded custody of me."

She doesn't tell Yukari everything, because she's not ready to talk about certain things nor is she ready for Yukari to hear them. She's sure Yukari is thinking it, though, the way her eyes narrow and her fist clenches into the blanket.

"I'm sorry that happened to you, Anthy," she says quietly. "But you're safe here." She tentatively reaches out her hand, which Anthy takes after a moment's hesitation.

"Thank you, Yukari."

Yukari lets her stay in her room for the rest of the night, where they sit up watching reruns of some game show before Anthy eventually falls back to sleep, her head on Yukari's shoulder. This time, it's dreamless.

The next day, Makiko and Aya ask her to study again, and Anthy accepts. They end up spending half the time talking about pets, and it turns out Aya's sister is one of Yukari's classmates.

"If Yukari says yes, would you two like to come over for dinner this weekend?" They'd love to, and for the first time in forever, she's excited.

She's finally taken that first step, and her journey can truly begin.


End file.
